THE ACTING UMNO PRESIDENT, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, warns party members of a weakened UMNO if it is rend with factions. That can destroy it, and UMNO members must guard against it when they vote their divisional and branch leaders within three weeks of July. But is this true? Yes, and no. He plays with words. What UMNO, as every political party in government and Opposition, has are divisions, natural when any group conjoin for a common purpose. Factions cause dissensions within. But divisions become factions when disallowed or restrained from voicing their views.

But Dr Lim overplayed his hand. There was a public spat, in which the UMNO and MCA presidents exchanged daily barbs. The Tengku was helped in no small measure in this crisis by one of Dr Lim's aides, now an important figure in Singapore. In the end, Dr Lim was forced to quit as MCA president, went on to form the United Democratic Party, had a small representation in Parliament and state assemblies, until in 1968, he threw in his lot when the Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia was formed, which at the head of an Opposition coalition, captured Penang in the 1969 general elections. The Gerakan-led Opposition formed the state government with him as chief minister, but two years later broke ranks to join the newly formed BN.

Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is returned to office by too wide a margin, and he cannot revamp UMNO or the government as he would have liked. Besides, the Opposition within has given notice the old practices on how leaders are selected must make way for new blood. But the UMNO gerontocracy would not allow it. The status quo will remain, where possible. The president and deputy president will be returned unopposed. It is an act of bravado, especially when the UMNO supreme council, the body which makes statements like these, did not call for it. Two gerontocrats, the party secretary-general and soon-to-be Yang Dipertua Negeri (governor) of Malacca, Tan Sri Khalil Yaakob, and the acting deputy president, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, took it upon themselves to mislead the party and country.

That the BN was returned in 90 per cent of the parliamentary constituencies gave Pak Lah a big headache. He turned out to be weaker than he would have if the BN had been returned with a two-thirds or three quarters of the seats, as even the Opposition had conceded. The Election Commission, in its desire to ensure a solid BN victory, threw caution to the winds, played havoc with the rules, and sidelined Pak Lah in more ways than one. Pak Lah thought the general election would shoo him in as UMNO president. It does not look so now. If he is challenged. The rumours of a challenge rises by the day. An official announcement on that is rumoured next week.

The advertisement carried the BN logo, which it could not if was not an official advertisement. It was to show that Pak Lah would act against corruption to the point of biting the hand of his predecessor and mentor. It became an issue when the Opposition leader, Mr Lim Kit Siang, raised it in parliament in the debate on the royal address, which had claimed that corruption was not prevalent. The minister in charge of Parliament, a new post that makes him the court jester in the Pak Lah cabinet, Dato' Seri Nazri Aziz, said 'anonymous sources' placed it, and refused to investigate. The Election Commission must act since 'anonymous sources' hijacked a party logo, but it would not budge unless the advertisement had praised the Opposition instead. As the BN's lapdog, it knows when and how to bark.

The test of Malaysia's independent judiciary now rests on how it deals with the political framing of the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. It does not yet pass muster. Similarly, the test of Malaysia's ISA will rest on how the police deals with those accused of breaching national security but with close links to those in power. When the powers that be want some one damned, the ISA is invoked to make that easy. The Anwar Ibrahim case is only the most prominent of that. But its test will come when it acts against someone in the eye of power, like the son of the Prime Minister. The Tahir case reveals it is not. It is time, as the Opposition Leader, Mr Lim Kit Siang, suggests, to rethink the ISA, and amend it for the purpose it should be on the law books, and not to rein in the government's opponents. But that, as many good suggestions from him, is for the government, water off the duck's back.

There is much in common between Dato' Seri Anwar, turned into a common criminal in the usual sleight of hand the authorities the world over are adept at to get rid of inconvenient political opponents, and Mr Khairy, in his estimation, brighter, smarter, better connected than any in UMNO, and that it was time to lord over them. One crashed when the Prime Minister himself decided he was too dangerous for his own good; the other about to for the same reason. It did not therefore surprise that Mr Khairy, after a speedy meteoric rise in five years, has nothing to show but his nepotic links. In both cases, the Prime Ministers are embarrassed. One watched the careers of both with a foreboding of the inevitable; each had their spin doctors; did not take kindly to criticism. The mainstream newspapers sang their praises, ignored the growing Opposition, and went after those who told the unpalatable. In Dato' Seri Anwar's case, he was catapaulted into the higher ranks in 1981, even telling a fib that he had been a member of UMNO years before he had become its articulate critic at university in the 1970s, and after, collected enemies galore in high places, and faced a sticky end. Mr Khairy did not hid his immense ambition, as Dato' Seri Anwar, and collected accolades and official positions as a dog collects fleas. This is where their careers diverged. Dato' Seri Anwar had his storm troopers, a sizeable support group which by and large remains intact even after his fall. Mr Khairy had none.

The government finding its control ebbing away behaves dictatorially to prove it is in charge. The first step to an elected dictatorship is cast. The less control it has over its people, the harsher the rule and even more difficult for the people to exercise their vote. Rules and laws are passed to make it difficult for the Opposition to win. The Opposition is demonised. In Malaysia, it is handmaiden to Osama bin Laden. The truth does not matter. The public perception, buttressed by global television which insists Bin Laden is behind it all, quickly laps it up.

THE SELANGOR GOVERNMENT ONCE gave laptop computers to state assemblymen. It had no practical purpose or use. It did not matter. The then mentri besar, Tan Sri Mohamed Taib, believed that the state assemblymen must be at the cutting edge of technology. What better way than give them laptop computers with which they could be connected at all times with the state government and their constituents. It did not matter that perhaps nine-tenths of their constituents did not care for, nor know how to use a, computer. More important, as many state assemblymen did not either. But how could the premier state in the country be so blind to the wonders of technology? It must be remedied. So each National Front (BN) state assemblyman was given a laptop computer, and ordered to make use of it. The miniscule Opposition, of course, should not enjoy the wonders of modern technology at state expense; they can buy their own. Besides, if you gave it to them, they could well use it to advance their cause, and perhaps defeat a few sitting BN members at the next election.

THE UNREST IN THE four Malay Muslim provinces of Southern Thailand, simmering for decades but in earnest since January, was one waiting to happen, with the added complication as a witting pawn in Washington's global war on terror. All the ingredients are there. A restive Malay population historically at odds with Bangkok and with close familial, racial and religious links to its neighbours to the south, in a poor south-east corner of Thailand that now faces the prospect of offshore oil and gas discoveries bringing new found wealth and encouraging a fresh cauldron of irredentist fervour, a renewed interest in Bangkok in keeping it firmly within its borders, and a belief amongst Malaysian hotheads, in the the governing National Front (BN) in Kuala Lumpur, and the Opposition Parti Islam Malaysia (PAS), of backing the irredentism. But Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok ignores a more powerful nationalist element, that the four states of Pattani, Yala, Songkhla and Narathiwat would want be independent, and which it can sustain with the expected oil and gas discoveries in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea.

So, it did not surprise when he called on the Royal Commission on the Police Force to start putting its "ideas" into action immediately. Good suggestions should be accepted, and implemented, if they can be without amending laws. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Lim Kit Siang, accepts it with alacrity. How did this come about? The Royal Commission chairman, Tun Dzaiddin Abdullah, suggested it when he met the IGP, Dato' Seri Mohamed Bakri Omar, and other senior police officers, and relayed what they had received. This seems to be out of line. The Royal Commission is not at liberty to talk about its hearings before it presents its report to the Yang Dipertuan Agung. Pak Lah, by suggesting it, is out of line. Whatever comes out should be in the report when it is submitted and published. The conditions of the Commission would have been clearly spelt out; there is no provision for its findings to be enforced in stages. Besides, must the Royal Commission share its preliminary findings with the police in the course of its investigations? What the Commission unearths is nothing new. The police know of it. Why cannot it do so on its own bat, and no demean the Royal Commission needlessly.

The only serious political Opposition to the Alliance, as the National Front (BN) was then known, was the Opposition Chinese-Malay left wring coalition called the Socialist Front, which remained a political threat even after it was demonised for its left wing, and later, pro-Indonesian, sympathies. When the pro-Chinese Labour Party of Malaya decided it would not contest the 1969 general elections, but would instead urge the people not to vote, it was a threat the Alliance could not ignore. It was after all the Socialist Front, in parliament and the states, challenged the cosy pro-British views of the Alliance, often forcing changes in policy. Many of its leading lights were detained under the Internal Security Act, detained without trial. The Alliance's views on Indonesia's confrontation of Malaysia was challenged to a far higher degree than officially admitted by Malaysian Malays and Chinese. One cabinet minister was detained under the ISA for his pro-Indonesian views. This Chinese political astuteness and exuberance was a convenient foil for Tun Razak to make his move.

The trainers are selected, often, at random, without background checks or competence, and made to work 16 to 20 hours a day. Many of them are not paid at all, or in dribs and drabs. The morale is understandably low, amongst the trainees and the trainers. Fights break out, rapes take place, peeping toms a menace, discipline is not there, nor a desire of authority to make it work. But the bigger problem is that it cannot be wished away. That the cabinet insists the NS programme would not stop is no substitute for the mess on the ground. Two Opposition political parties, KeADILan and DAP, have called for it to be suspended. Given the mess the government is in over it, it would be ignored. But it should modify it drastically. Start with the boys, and bring the girls in, if it has to, only when the system is up and running. Why were the camps and training privatised to invididuals and companies with no experience? Why were not those who could, like the armed forces, brought in? Why were not all these problems and difficulties discussed and sorted out as they arise?

HUBRIS, UNMITIGATED ARROGANCE, THIS belief in its skewed confidence that it is lord of all its surveys, has brought the National Front (BN) and its president and prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, to their knees. The BN splits from within, far more effectively than the Opposition could, as the huge parliamentary majority weakens it. No one talks about it, but the BN is now irrevocably split. Pak Lah is caught between two stools, unable neither to take advantage of his unprecedented mandate nor keep his troops in line. The BN has had powerful pressure groups from within, but they are, by and large, kept in their corner. Add to this, two groups none would talk of: the small band of Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah loyalists, and the more widespread but seemingly powerless backers of the jailed Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. But these two groups kept their own counsel, did not attempt to be more than a pressure group, and as equally forcibly distanced from the source of power and patronage. This time, however, the wide split from within comes from an uncertain and weak party president and the state warlords, who exert their authority in ways they would not dare under previous prime ministers.

But Pak Lah must pay the price of his predecessor, Tun Mahathir Mohamed's profligacy. The BN government insisted it would do as it likes, brooked no Opposition, especially from Parliament, the voters there only to vote it in and shut up. It has all the answers. It does not make mistakes. The Prime Minister will decide. The cabinet will approve what he wants. The one required qualification to be in it is incontrovertible proof he or she cannot and will not think, will parrot the prime minister's view creatively, has no independent power base, would rather sell his country than even think of disobeying his prime minister. To make sure of it, Tun Mahathir Mohamed would hold four day courses - first at Kem Bina Semangat, Pasir Panjang, Teluk Kemang in Negri Sembilan, then in Langkawi - for the cabinet, secretaries-general, UMNO leaders in and out of government. He breaks them down psychologically, subliminally subverts their minds, make them hold an egg in their hands at all times, and they must never let it break. The egg represents national unity and integration, he tells them, so fragile that it can only be saved with constant care and attention. Why he took no action against the two cabinet ministers - Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu and Datin Rafidah Aziz - who would not attend is unclear. But when ministers are dropped, or jailed, for nay saying, the message is clear. Incidentally, the only other instructor of this couse was Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. Tun Mahathir's anger towards him has much to do with this gamekeeper turning poacher.

It is an unspoken truth in Malaysia that the governing National Front (BN) coalition benefits when constituencies are delineated. One it was after every decade or thereabout, after the national census. But its leaders decided that that was not enough. So it is after eight years and two elections. It is so done that the elections immediately after benefits it. At least that is the theory. But PAS, working out of sight and behind the scenes, had built a formidable electoral machine that now challenges the BN and especially UMNO. Helping it is the split in the Malay cultural ground. The EC delineates parliamentary and state constituencies on racial lines, but with the troubling strength of PAS in the Malay heartland, the Malay constituencies are now packed with non-Malay voters so PAS would lose out yet again. But in the second election, PAS and the Opposition gains ground as BN and UMNO sits on their laurels, and the Opposition makes headway.

IT IS NOT THE best of omens, it seems. Last month's general elections, which gave the National Front (BN) under its new president and prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi its best ever result: 90 per cent of the 219 seats in parliament, control of all 11 of 12 states which had elections (thirteenth, Sarawak, is a BN controlled state anyway). Yet disturbing persistent reports of poll rigging, the Election Commission's less than honest conduct of it, and darker forces that in any other country with a democratic tradition, however nascent, it would have been nullified. The BN, instead of addressing it, wished it away, and Opposition claims of poll rigging is dismissed as sour grapes. But there is one huge difference. At no point, did the Opposition expect to unseat the BN government, indeed they accepted it would have at least a two-thirds majority. It also accepted, in its most pessimistic assessment, Trengganu, which happened. But in an election where it had everything in its favour, why did the BN involve, or at most allow, this poll rigging? As information trickles down, from disaffected UMNO members and others, all of this was concocted at the 38th floor of the Putra World Trade Centre, where UMNO has its headquarters.

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, got what he wanted in last month's general elections - his National Front (BN) decimated the Opposition. But it turns out a pyrrhic victory. The BN won, that is all that matters. But that is not how it is viewed. The Election Commission changed the rules at will, breaking its own rules with impunity, electoral rules and voting hours changed at will, and ad hoc, which if its own rules are followed, vitiates the polls. Its chairman changes his version of what happened at every press conference that he himself suggested a royal commission to sort it out. Pak Lah would not agree. But the prime minister is an interested party, and he, with a vested interest in its outcome, should not decide; at the very least, all political parties should have been consulted. In Selangor, the least the EC could do is to order fresh elections. But it is powerless to order that.

The EC chairman, Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman, understands this only too well. In early 2003, when the parliamentary constituencies were being redrawn, he made an unpublicised trip to Sabah, where he met with UMNO leaders. His mission was two-fold: to ensure that Muslims would form the majority of any new Sabah state assembly, and that the Chinese, whose support is crucial for any group wanting to form the government, be permanently reduced to an irrelevant electoral force. He achieved both. He had private meetings the night he arrived with those of like views in Sabah UMNO, then with UMNO leaders the next morning, and returned home. He did not meet any other leaders in the state BN or Opposition. UMNO had proposed that one way out of this was to have 70 parliamentary constituencies, unworkable since neighbouring Sarawak would also have to be upgraded, and that would have made the exercise moot since UMNO does not exist in Sarawak, and the Sarawak BN would not agree to a plan for more seats in return for a majority of Muslim constituencies.

This belief that Malaysia's 11th general election was shortchanged did not come from just hearsay. It was there on the EC website for all to see. They were downloaded, and when it raised more questions than answers, it was hastily pulled out. Why? In the Kuala Trengganu parliamentary constituency, the EC website initially showed an unaccounted 10,000 ballot papers. When it was challenged, it was hastily pulled down, and the revised results showed nothing that like. Tan Sri Abdul Rashid now claims that a third of the 200,000 postal ballot papers were not returned, and that accounted for "some" constituencies showing a relatively high number of unreturned ballot papers. The results have since been adjusted - there is no other word to describe it - but few, except in the BN, accept it. When this should have been the new prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's greatest triumph, his strength is now dissipated in this deliberate attempt to turn the election wholly towards BN. The Barisan Alternatif (the Alternate Front), today (14 April 2004) released its analysis of the poll results, based on official documents. Not that it would improve matters much. The EC has decided that for all its faults, it did right, and if the Opposition parties did not agree, the redress is in the courts.

Pak Lah (1364)   United States (636)   Straits Times (412)   Samy Vellu (224)   Putra Jaya (200)   Chief Justice (200)   Saddam Hussein (188)   Vincent Tan (164)   Civil Service (154)   Parti KeADILan (148)   Islamic State (118)   Johore Bahru (100)   Sungei Buloh (94)   Bukit Tinggi (88)   Abdul Razak (80)   Pengkalen Pasir (68)   Ting Pek (64)   Armed Forces (59)   Soviet Union (58)

Malay Dominance (58)   Yong Teck (56)   Hong Kong (56)   Human Rights (56)   Syed Hamid (54)   Puteri UMNO (52)   Islam Hadhari (52)   Royal Commission (51)   Hussein Onn (51)   Rafidah Aziz (48)   Indian Congress (48)   Open House (44)   Vision Schools (44)   Shah Alam (44)   Malay Unity (42)   Chua Jui (42)   Abdul Taib (42)   Ampang Jaya (36)   Ras Adiba (36)

Osama Bin Laden (36)   Nik Aziz Nik (20)   Ling Liong Sik (18)   Lee Kuan Yew (18)

High Court Judge (14)   Wan Azizah Wan (9)   Lim Kit Siang (9)   Megat Junid Megat (8)

Mahathir (2960)

Anwar (2399)